“Or you of me? You forget—I’m fired.”
She noted the subtle accent, and equally subtle was her reply. “Why, yes, so you were.”
Then, looking at each other, they both laughed.
[XIV: NEMESIS DOGS THE THREE—AND IS “DOGGED,” IN TURN, BY LEE]
Midnight saw the prisoners safely bestowed in a ’dobe that had served the old Spaniard, Carleton’s predecessor, for a jail. During the remainder of the night the Three stood guard in turn and Gordon, who relieved Sliver at daybreak, was still at the door when Lee came out of her bedroom on the upper gallery.
Goodness knows she was pretty enough in her man’s riding-togs, but now a flowing kimono added the softness and mystery a man loves best in a woman. As she moved forward to the rail and stretched, looking off and away to the mountains, the loose sleeves fell away and Gordon obtained a distracting glimpse of polished arms, small white teeth, in a round red mouth, all set in the blazing gold of her hair. Seeing him, she cut off the yawn and smiled.
“You must be dreadfully hungry.” Her clear call floated across the compound. “Come to breakfast. I’ll send Miguel to keep watch.”
She was already seated at the table under the portales when he came in, and as he took his seat Maria, the smaller of the two house criadas, reported the Three as being still lost in sleep.
“The poor fellows!” Lee commented, distressfully. “They must be dead. Don’t awaken them.”
Thus, after the crowding events of the previous day, which included a fist fight, proposal of marriage from one girl, wild chase after another, a bandit raid and lynching-party, all rendered more impressive by the dark ride through warm, mysterious night, Gordon now sat tête-à-tête with his pretty employer.